After days lost in contemplation, our stranded astronaut is running short on supplies and facing the grim realities of survival. Instead of staying stuck within a moat of self-pity though, our traveler embraces the challenge of staying alive in a foreign world. Using a combination of the native surroundings and salvaged technology, he builds a shelter, scopes out the area for food and water, and creates some self-defense. Upon accepting his situation and how it will potentially define the rest of his life, our astronaut gets to the point where he feels somewhat optimistic about his new world.
As the weeks wear on, the challenges of building a life on a new planet begin to wear on our astronaut. The constant newness of his environment offers consistent surprises and threats at ever turn. Unusual wildlife wanders around him, no he's never quite sure about the danger they pose. Every bite he takes runs the chance of making him sick, and at some points, he falls into that trap. More than anything, it's the loneliness that drives him crazy though, and he spends most days just wishing for someone to talk to. While he still feels his chances do survival are good, he just can't picture living like this forever.
After a couple of months, the loneliness becomes too much and he decides to leave the fairly safe confines of his shelter and look for other life. A long journey brings him to the edge of a local civilization, providing a shocking realization - he is not alone and he is in grave danger. The native people are extremely technologically advanced and very militaristic. They seem confined to their own people which does not show signs of inclusion from outer influences. The reality sets in that once he confronts them, he will undoubtedly face defeat and death.
This is the second piece in my 2013 RPM Challenge album.
I wrote and recorded this track completely on my third generation iPad using a number of apps, including Sunrizer Synth, Magellan, Stochastik Drum Machine. Animoog, Thumbjam, Drumjam, guitarism, Audiobus, MultiTrack DAW, iFretless Bass, SoundPrism Pro, Arpeggionome Pro, and Korg iPolysix.

@fprintf: Thanks, I appreciate that! The string sounds come from ThumbJam. Not only does that app have a wonderful interface, but it's full of gorgeous samples. I particularly like the strings - I find that strings are often very hard to emulate, but ThumbJam makes it a breeze . . . awesome app!

@nathanjontillett: Thanks Nathan, much appreciated. Sometimes I feel like the conceptual thing is a little removed from music making, but I can't really get away from it. For better or worse, having some concepts behind the creation of the music really helps motivate me to write. Glad that its working out, thanks for the positive energy!

@jesperjones: Thanks Jesper, I really appreciate you keeping up with both the music and the story! As I was working through the music for the challenge, I tried to look into different sounds that would emphasize story telling over the technical aspects of writing music. The strings were a very different choice for me, but something that I felt captured the emotional change. Thanks for checking it out!

@michaelw-2: Thanks Michael, I really value your feedback, so nice to hear. It's funny, I've really come to think of the variety of different apps available as a artistic pallete that I can use to construct a piece. Each app has its own strength and I try to apply it in the spot that highlights what it does best. I spend a bit of time with each of these apps to work out the technical details so that when I'm writing seriously, I can go to them for artistic rather than technical reasons. I've often thought of outlining a piece like this so that people can cue into the apps individually; maybe in the future . . .

@trinity-ward: Thanks Trinity, I really appreciate that. I was really looking for something distinctly different to express the emotional change in the storyline. The strings seemed to add an introspective feeling that tapped into the isolation and hopelessness felt by my main character. It was kind of fun and different to create too . . .

@nathanjontillett: Thanks Nathan, this was a bit of a different approach for me, and I wasn't sure how it would go over. Glad to hear the positive feedback! That is Thumbjam - you know, I think that I love that app more every time that I use it. Not only does it just have some amazingly outstanding samples, the way that you can manipulate them is just fantastic. You're not just playing notes, you're putting in bend, tremelo, dynamic changes, and all this expressive stuff. Just an amazing app, definitely one of my favorites!

@iclifdotme: Ha! It's all good, spoilers are a major part of sci-fi anyways, right? Glad that you dug this section, in all honesty, I almost scrapped it altogether. I was feeling that it might just be too different. Eventually decided to keep it because it went along with the story well. Glad that you liked it!